The present invention relates to the field of hand tools for forming wire and the like, more particularly, to pliers for forming wire into loops and similar shapes.
In the past, wire loops have been formed using conventional longnose pliers, resulting in imperfect loops. Round nose pliers have permitted formation of more circular loops, but did not assure that repeated use would result in identical sized loops, because of the tapered jaws of the pliers.
Other specialty pliers are known for forming wires into loops, commonly known as wire wrapping pliers, which have one jaw formed in a series of stepped diameter cylinders, and the other jaw being flat or concave where it faces the cylindrical jaw. Such wire wrapping pliers were not convenient to forming tight loops because the wire was gripped between the jaws at a location which was typically 180 degrees away from the closure of the loop. Forming the loop adjacent the contact between the jaws of such pliers exposes the wire to the edge of the flat or concave jaw, reintroducing the possibility of undesired deformation of the wire resulting from contact with such edge.
The present invention overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art by providing a pliers-type wire forming tool that is easy and convenient to use to form consistently-sized wire loops, with or without a coil adjacent the loop.